


slither in my dreams

by littlehuang (boyfrendery)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dreams, M/M, Meet-Cute, Minor Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten/Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung, Minor Mark Lee/Wong Kun Hang | Hendery, Minor Suh Youngho | Johnny/Qian Kun, Soulmates, Superstition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:20:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25575697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boyfrendery/pseuds/littlehuang
Summary: The five times Yukhei dreams of a snake (and the one time he meets a human).
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas
Comments: 13
Kudos: 72
Collections: LucasFicFest





	slither in my dreams

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to the prompter for suggesting such a cute idea. i hope you enjoy it!
> 
> special thanks to sam for beta-ing ♡

The night before Yukhei moves into his new apartment, he dreams in his sleep.

Which, given that he’s dreamt nearly every night for as long as he can remember, shouldn’t be unusual. It isn’t unusual.

This dream, however—there was something off about it, an overwhelming mysticism that felt more grave, more _serious_ , than what he’s used to. There’s usually some sort of story to his dreams, but this one? Not something he can decipher on his own. 

Naturally, Yukhei calls the only person who might be able to help him out: his little brother.

“So I was at my desk, right? In my— this,” Yukhei waves around himself, turning the camera with him. “In my room. I’m sitting at my desk but I couldn’t _move_ , y’know?”

Since they were children, the Wong siblings shared a bedroom and Timhei was the unfortunate victim of Yukhei’s odd sleeping habits, namely his middle-of-the-night laughter. Yukhei would sit up in bed, bellow into the darkness, then fall back asleep without so much as another sound, and every morning Timhei would make the annoying point of telling his older brother that he laughed in his sleep _again_. 

But he’s used to it now, stopped teasing Yukhei about it as they got older, and instead chooses to listen to Yukhei retell the events of his dreams: all the film-worthy stories his subconscious would whip up for him while he slept. Even now, many miles apart and one timezone away, Timhei indulges him whenever Yukhei calls out of the blue to ramble on about his dreams.

Timhei grumbles, nods, and gestures for Yukhei to go on.

“It was around 1am on my laptop screen, and I was typing up something—probably like an essay or report, doesn’t matter—but I couldn’t see the screen.”

“So you had a dream… about school.”

Yukhei shakes his head. “Nah, man, that’s not it. I was sitting there, right? And I’m wearing shorts because I’m at home. And then I feel something around my ankle and I think, huh, why am I itchy? Am I wearing socks?”

He looks at Timhei, who’s just staring at him with a bored, tired look on his face, the palm of his hand pressed against his cheek. He continues with the story. “But the feeling gets worse, and I feel it all over my calves and my thighs, like a pressure weighing down on my body. But I keep typing and working, and my eyes are so heavy that I don’t even bother looking away from the screen.”

Tim itches the stubble on his chin. It makes a scratchy, grating noise into the mic. “This doesn’t sound like anything exciting, Yuk.”

“You gotta wait! Okay, so something flickers in my line of sight, and I thought it was just my eyes playing tricks because I’m tired. And then I _hear_ it before I see it.” Yukhei pauses for extra emphasis. “It was a fucking snake slithering up my body! All shiny and scaly, really dark eyes. It wrapped around my torso and squeezed me so hard, I thought I was gonna actually die. Scary as shit.”

“Did anything else happen after that? Or did you die and wake up.”

“I think I… froze? Yeah, I froze. My whole body was paralyzed.” Yukhei’s dreams are always unpredictable like this. No real telling when it’ll begin or end.

“And that’s… it. You woke up after? Nothing else?”

Yukhei looks at his brother’s confused face. Uninterested, definitely, but his taut expression seems just as confused as Yukhei _feels_ , unsure of what to make of this kind of dream. While nonlinear plots and open-ended stories aren’t uncommon in his dreamland adventures, last night’s was all depth and _meaning_. Something more to it that he can’t pinpoint right now.

“Nothing else happened but dude, it was a _bad_ dream. I woke up sweaty and feeling really scared and stuff. And then I called you right after that, at,” Yukhei stops to tap his phone screen a couple times, searching for the time. “At around 3am. Crap, sorry.”

“You’re lucky I’m still awake.” Timhei takes off his glasses to rub his eyes. He picks up his phone and Yukhei watches as he carries it with him, catching the small glimpses of their house as he passes through the archways of each room. Behind him, the wall colours change three times before Timhei reaches his bedroom.

“So what do you think it means?”

He purses his lips in thought for a moment. “I think… I think you dreamt of me, bro. Year of the snake, baby!” Timhei laughs, loud.

“Fuck off.”

“Could be worse. Could’ve had another dream of me chasing you with a frog.”

Yukhei is rudely reminded why he stopped asking his brother for his opinion. Talking to Timhei is comforting but despite the years and distance grown between them since Yukhei moved out, he can see that not much else has changed. His brother is still, for lack of a better term, a shithead. 

“I’m never calling you again.”

Timhei smooches the camera of his phone. “Love you too. G’night.”

The call ends with two resounding beeps. Feeling no better than he did ten minutes ago, Yukhei crawls back under his covers, shutting his eyes to let the darkness swallow him.

* * *

The same nightmare haunts Yukhei when he falls back asleep. He wakes up the next morning feeling unsettled but attributes the weird funk he’s in to the lack of sleep—he _did_ wake up at 3 in the morning and didn’t sleep any better afterward. Still, no weird dream is bad enough to ruin his mood for the day. When he heads to the bathroom for a warm shower, he shakes off the uneasiness as easily as the shampoo suds slide off his body: any lingering thoughts about snakes get rinsed away with the bubbles down the shower drain.

Besides, today’s a momentous day for him: he’s _finally_ moving out of this ancient apartment. This studio has been his home since the day he landed at Incheon airport four years ago, back when he was a blank-slate student ready to be changed by the pursuit of knowledge. He survived his undergrad on monthly bank deposits from his family and part-time wages at a café close to school, tolerating the too-low ceiling and nights of ramen dinners inside his apartment, and with a diligent spending plan and some apartment-hunting luck, he found a place after graduation that was within his budget and saved enough to afford a whole year’s worth of rent.

If he’s _still_ lucky, he’ll find a better job before those funds run out. He’s working on it.

Once squeaky clean and dressed, Yukhei puts away the last of his stuff and tidies up. There isn’t much left for him to do: the new unit has been vacant since the 1st of the month with his move-in day scheduled on the 15th, so he’s spent the last fortnight slowly packing up his things, travelling to the new place to drop off a box or bag before one of his barista shifts. He saved the largest items—his bed, his secondhand couch, his empty dresser—for today, renting the smallest available moving truck to bring the last of his belongings over.

Ten arrives with the vehicle in the late afternoon.

“Thanks again for helping me out today,” Yukhei says. He fastens his seatbelt while Ten backs out of the apartment complex, making a left turn onto the main street. “I didn’t think I’d ever need to drive all this stuff across the city.”

“Anytime. Now,” Ten keeps his eyes on the road as he places a hand on Yukhei’s thigh. “Tell me what’s up. You look tired today. Did you stay up applying for jobs again?”

The drive is nearly twenty minutes and with nothing much else to do, Yukhei figures that retelling his dream might help him feel better.

Five minutes into the story, he says the word “snake” and Ten interrupts him.

“Oh, Lulu. My dear Lulu,” Ten reaches over, soothes Yukhei’s thigh with a reassuring pat. “You’re gonna meet your soulmate.”

Yukhei tears his gaze away from the street to look at Ten. “Huh? What makes you say that?”

Ten pats his leg once more before moving his hand back onto the steering wheel. He turns the street corner and switches lanes seamlessly. “You really don’t know?”

“No! What, am I supposed to know?” Yukhei catches his voice raising and— and realizes that he said that in Cantonese. Damn.

(Although, this is definitely not the first time Yukhei spoke in the wrong language out of frustration. That’s exactly how he met Ten: Yukhei swore to himself in Thai when he spilled a drink at the café. Ten offered to help him clean it up. They’ve been friends ever since.)

Ten laughs behind the steering wheel, evidently amused by Yukhei’s outburst. Yukhei smacks him on the shoulder. “I’m so _confused_. Just tell me. What’s a soulmate got to do with my dream?”

He just grins, cheshire and mischievous. “Don’t worry about it too much. Call your mom when you’re all settled in your apartment. She can explain it to you.”

The advice isn’t helpful—none of this conversation is, really. Yukhei leans back into his seat, closing his eyes to listen to the honking cars and rumble of tires on cement. Before he knows it, he’s awoken by the beeping of the van being backed into the parking lot.

Between the two of them, moving all the furniture up isn’t terribly difficult. It’s a manageable task, however they only have four hands combined so it takes a few trips up and down the elevator to get all the large items up to his unit. By the fifth trip up, Ten decides he needs a break and tosses the keys to Yukhei.

“I still have to drive back when we’re done!” Ten hollers from where he’s sprawled on the couch. He managed to find one of Yukhei’s cushions and now hugs it tight to his chest, curling comfortably on his side. “I’m gonna nap and help when you come back. I swear.”

Yukhei decides to take the stairs back down to the parking lot (living so close to the ground floor has its privileges) and heads to the moving truck. Aside from his mattress, all that’s left inside are a couple small things—too little to warrant another trip downstairs.

With a backpack slung over his shoulder, a luggage in his right hand, and a cardboard box in his left, all his limbs are completely occupied. Luckily a couple entering the building is kind enough to hold the door open for him in the lobby. He thanks them with a curt nod and a kind smile.

When he turns toward the elevator, he makes a quick run for the doors.

“Wait!” Yukhei scrambles forward, luggage bouncing behind him as he dashes.

The other person in the elevator moves to the side, making room for Yukhei to sprint head-first into the elevator. The doors close behind him just in time.

Yukhei pants, head leaning against the mirrored walls of the elevator, and he thinks he hears the stranger talking to him.

“Huh?” It comes out more like a grunt—really rude of him, to be honest—but the buzzing in his ear from that sprint is making it difficult for him to hear anything. 

“I said, what floor?”

Yukhei looks up and thinks he sees a ghost.

Somehow he completely missed the fact that this person’s hair is _white_ : A4 printer paper white, bleached from root to tip, matching the all-white ensemble of his outfit. The guy’s wearing lensless glasses, huge metal rims framing such a small face, and— is he _smirking_ beneath his face mask? This Balenciaga boy in matching hoodie and sneakers? The nerve.

Yukhei takes a moment to look down at himself: the box of books under his arm, barreling toward the door with a luggage in hand. Sweaty, probably, and now panting like a dog in the summer heat (the dryness in his mouth makes him feel that way, too). He probably looked ridiculous while running with all this stuff. Maybe he can’t blame the stranger for thinking it’s funny.

Yukhei stands up straight and catches his breath. “Uh, fourth floor please. Thanks.”

The man nods. “No problem. Are you new here?” 

“Yeah, just moved in today.”

The stranger’s cheeks rise, eyes crinkling. “Ah, well. Welcome to the building.”

It’s a short trip up, a minute at most, and soon he’s walking to the end of the hallway, unlocking the door to his apartment.

“Hey,” Ten chirps, knees tucked on the couch. One of Yukhei’s old pictures is held in his hand—he turns it around, offering it up for Yukhei to see. “Did you model as a kid?”

“Mmm.” Yukhei sets down the box in his hand and picks up the frame. The photo has yellowed and faded with time but captures a brief but fond part of Yukhei’s childhood. “Help me bring up the mattress and I’ll tell you about it over dinner.”

The promise of food makes Ten pounce off the couch with enthusiasm and Yukhei finds himself standing inside the elevator once more.

* * *

That night, Yukhei falls asleep in his new home and dreams of the snake again. It doesn’t get any better.

The dream sequence travels along the same path of eeriness as before. The only major difference this time is how he remembers the colour of the snake’s body: pale as moonlight, scales brightly reflected off the glaring light from the laptop on his desk. He wakes up in the middle of the night, unable to ignore the uneasiness twisting in his stomach.

Unable to sleep, he types down all the details onto the Notes app on his phone and decides to call his mom that afternoon.

“I couldn’t believe your pa when he told me where you moved. The fourth floor? Did you _have_ to pick that one?” She speaks in rapidfire Thai and it takes a moment for Yukhei to catch up to it. Aside from occasional conversations with Ten, he doesn’t get much practice anymore.

“It’s fine, ma. I’ll be fine. Nothing bad has happened.”

She pauses, takes a deep breath. “Are you sure there weren’t other units available in that building? Nothing on the ninth floor?”

“No, there aren’t. Plus, I got a really good deal with the rent!” Yukhei lifts his shoulder to his ear, balancing his phone there as he walks from the kitchen to the couch. “The area here is better than my old place, too. I promise I did everything right when I moved in.”

She sighs loudly. “I thought the buildings there don’t have floors with the number four. What is wrong with those builders—”

“It’s a new apartment complex in Itaewon. When I _talked to the landlord_ ,” Yukhei emphasizes this part, hears his mom huff on the other end, “they told me that mostly foreigners live in this area so they decided to keep all the floor numbers. Not everyone is as superstitious as you.”

“Okay,” she resigns. Yukhei can imagine the puckered, worried expression on her face. Wishes he could see it in person. “Okay. You said earlier that you wanted to ask me something?”

“I talked to Tim about this already,” he starts. “I had a really weird dream.”

Yukhei slumps down on the couch. He takes a slurp of his instant noodles before going into the entire spiel for a third time, describing the room, the darkness and the laptop monitor, the constriction. His story gets as far as mentioning the snake when his mom interrupts him. Just like Ten did. 

“You dreamt of a snake?”

“Yes?” Yukhei picks up his glass of water from the floor and takes a liberal sip.

“Did it eat you?”

“Uh… no?” Yukhei checks the notes on his phone. As far as he can remember, the dream ends with the snake looking straight at him. “Was it supposed to? Ten said you would know what this dream means.”

“And your brother didn’t explain it to you? I thought I’ve told you both about this before.”

“Well, I called Tim at 3 in the morning. He wasn’t helpful and said I dreamed about him.”

“That silly kid.” She clears her voice on the other end. “Do you remember how me and your pa met?”

Yukhei nods along. He loved this story as a kid, still finds it just as ridiculous as it is romantic. “Yeah,” he laughs, “he bought you a phone so he could keep in touch with you. What a big shot.”

“Well, the night before I met him I had a dream. Something like yours. A snake wrapped itself around me. It felt like a nightmare but I knew it wasn’t.” She sounds wistful as she reminisces. “I didn’t trust your pa at first but I stuck with my gut. At home, they say that dreams about snakes are actually about soulmates. Have you met anyone special recently?”

Yukhei shakes his head. Belatedly realizes that she can’t see him so answers, “no, I haven’t. Not yet.”

“Hm. Then you may have met this person already. Keep your eyes open.”

“Will do.”

“And darling?”

Yukhei hums, expecting another earful about ghosts or good luck. She offers him some sound advice instead: “don’t forget to always lock your door when you get home.”

  
  
  


The rest of Yukhei’s week falls into a relatively normal rhythm. 

Even his dreams go back to their regularly scheduled programming of big-screen cinematics. He lives through a romcom one night, gets abducted by aliens the night after, and more or less his _real_ life carries on with a low simmering sense of newness. Aside from getting used to the new subway route to work and learning how to use the washing machine in his apartment, Yukhei’s life falls back into a routine of sleep, eat, work, rinse and repeat. Mostly work.

Ten visits him at the café on a Tuesday afternoon, busy working on some tattoos designs at a table close to the counter. _Marigold_ is a fairly popular spot among students in the area thanks to its gracious seating area and stamp card program. It keeps Yukhei occupied during most shifts, making small talk with regulars or manning the bar with lattes, but the idle season between the end of winter semester and the beginning of summer semester has kept the café emptier than usual.

Once all the drinks are served and the espresso machine is cleaned up, Yukhei pulls up a chair across from Ten.

“Remember the thing I told you about?” He asks.

“Which one?” Ten keeps his attention on his work. He draws one long, dark stroke across his sketchbook. “How you were a child model and conveniently _never_ told me, or your snake soulmate dream?”

“The dream one. I’ve heard every kind of superstition from my ma except that one.”

“It’s something they told me and my sister as kids alongside, like, boogie monsters and spirits and stuff.” Ten takes off his headphones and hangs it around his neck, then takes a slow sip of his iced coffee. 

“Do you believe in soulmates, then?” Yukhei asks.

“Not really. If soulmates _do_ exist, I think I already met mine. Didn’t need a dream to predict that for me.”

Yukhei watches as Ten continues sketching: a large, serpent-like dragon tattoo, sprawling over the silhouette of a back. Sometimes he gets caught off guard by Ten’s sudden tidbits of wisdom. He forgets the whole story behind Ten’s current relationship—from long-distance online lovers to real-life boyfriends—because they make their life together seem seamless the way it is. They’re constantly bickering like an old married couple but always full of affection, hidden in the small things they do for each other. He thinks they could be soulmates.

Yukhei doesn’t get to ruminate on this for very long when he hears the bell over the café entrance. He heads back to his workstation, waiting as the customer peers down at their menu from under the shade of his maroon cap.

“Can I,” the man hesitates for a second, turning away to sneeze into his arm. At least he’s wearing a face mask. “Sorry. Can I have one jasmine tea?”

Yukhei works quickly, ringing up the order and brewing the drink as quickly as possible. He really wants to get back to this conversation with Ten.

Once the man leaves and Yukhei clears off some tables, he heads back to sit with Ten.

“Good news,” Ten says, stuffing his phone back into the pocket of his jeans. “Bunny just messaged me. He has a job prospect that he thinks you should go for.”

Yukhei perks up. “What is it?”

“Didn’t get all the details yet. He’s picking me up after work and we’re gonna get dinner. Wanna join us?”

Yukhei has nothing planned after his shift (he rarely does) and with the possibility of a job on the table… “definitely. I finish at 8.”

The rest of Yukhei’s shift passes swimmingly, motivated solely by good news ahead of him.

  
  
  


Doyoung and Ten drive Yukhei home after dinner. They spent their evening discussing Yukhei’s experience in modelling (there wasn’t much to say) and ended the night with an offer in the making.

“Basically: my best friend’s husband works for a modelling agency and thinks you’re hot. They both do.”

“Your best friend is _married?_ ” was all Yukhei took away from that conversation. Maybe he had one too many shots of soju.

Doyoung nodded. “Yes, and both him and his husband think you’d be a great clothing model. Said you have ‘amazing proportions’ when I showed them pictures of your Instagram. I’m surprised we didn’t think of this kind of stuff for you before.”

Yukhei exits their car with a bubbly warmth in his chest and a new number in his phone. Doyoung promised that Johnny would get in contact with him in a few days.

Before heading to the elevator, Yukhei passes by the lobby and heads to the mailroom. He doesn’t expect anything in his mailbox when he opens it up, so he’s surprised to find a yellow parcel stuffed into the small container.

His mind is a bit hazy at the moment but upon initial examination it _does_ look addressed to him. The unit number seems right, the address is fine, even the last name is nearly correct: it says _Huang_ instead of _Wong_ , but that’s an honest mistake. It’s good enough.

The first name, however, is completely wrong. Not even close to Yukhei.

He passes by the apartment management office and finds the room locked and empty. Typed in boldface font on the glass of the door is a sign that mocks him in red print: “OPEN: 9AM TO 9PM.” The time on his phone reads well past eleven.

With no other choice, Yukhei takes the package upstairs with him, hopping cheerily up the staircase. He’s got a good feeling thrumming through his veins, either from the alcohol or the possibility of a job lined up for him, but it doesn’t matter. Yukhei feels great, bold. He takes another look at the package in his hands and decides to knock on his neighbour’s door, just in case it was meant for them.

A man dressed in green patterned pajamas greets him with surprised eyes when he opens the door. “Hello?”

“Hi, I’m Yukhei. I just moved in next door. Is this yours?” He holds out the package and— yikes. He didn’t say any of that in Korean.

“Oh, babe, the new guy speaks Cantonese too!” His neighbour says in… English? Yukhei can’t properly figure this out right now.

Another man comes up to the door dressed in a matching pair of white pajamas. He takes the package from Yukhei and examines it for a moment before answering back in Cantonese. “Looks like one of the numbers got smudged. This is for unit 1424, not 424. I know one of the guys up there. I’ll drop it off tomorrow.”

“Okay! Uh, thanks…” Yukhei searches for their names on his tongue but can’t find them.

“Hendery and Mark,” the one in white supplies, pointing at himself then toward the other man.

“Right! Thanks Hendery and Mark. You guys rock.”

Yukhei waves and walks the few steps back to his door. It takes a bit of effort but he manages to find his keys, lock the door behind him, and collapse on his couch.

* * *

A couple days later, Yukhei _officially_ meets his neighbours. 

He’s surprised it’s taken this long for him to meet them. They _are_ literal neighbours but in the past two weeks he’s lived here, they never crossed paths, not even once while leaving or entering his apartment.

It happens while Yukhei is rushing out the door for an out-of-the-ordinary Thursday morning shift. He spots both of his neighbours standing outside their door dressed in running attire and matching headbands. The shorter of the two greets him first.

His memory of the parcel incident resides in a soju-scented haze in his mind with barely any recollection of it. He remembers their faces—“giggly” is the best way he can sum up both of them—but their names are lost on his tongue. Thankfully they’re gracious enough to reintroduce themselves. 

As the three of them wait for the elevator heading down, Mark informs Yukhei that the package was safely delivered to its owner.

“Thanks for doing that.” Yukhei scratches the nape of his neck. “I’m sorry about my… intrusion that night. Not the best first impression.”

“It’s fine,” Mark says, pressing the button closed on the elevator. “It was actually kinda funny.”

“Have you met anyone else in the building?” Hendery asks.

“Not yet,” Yukhei admits. He hasn’t had much of a social life recently. “I’m always at work. Heading there now, actually.”

The elevator descends swiftly, dinging when they reach the lobby. Hendery steps out first. “Well, if you ever have time to go for dinner with us, just knock on our door. We know a great burger place in the area.”

  
  
  


That afternoon, Yukhei gets home from his shift and heads straight to his bed for a nap. The snake visits him in his short dream and the fuzzy details he couldn’t quite make out before have become clearer: the monitor on his screen, right before he wakes up, reads 3:23am. The document that he’s typing up is actually his résumé, which Yukhei deduces is more of a testament to how stressed he is about finding a job. It doesn’t seem at all relevant to the whole soulmate situation.

Any fears he had about the dream are gone, too. All that's left is the buzzing feeling of unsettled nerves and unending curiosity.

He wakes up from his nap two hours later, close to 6pm, his stomach rumbling and _hungry_. With nothing but a carton of eggs in the fridge, Yukhei finds himself out for dinner with his neighbours, suddenly grateful for their last minute plans.

Mark and Hendery (“or Kunhang for you,” he later says in Cantonese) are downright hilarious. They moved into the apartment a couple years ago as total strangers, their relationship budding through friendly roommate dates of exploring their neighbourhood together. 

“I’m like,” Mark says with a fry shovelled into his mouth. “So glad you moved next door. Our old neighbours had a baby that cried all night.”

Spread out on the paper of their dine-in tray is Mark’s DIY mixture of ketchup and mayonnaise, who said something about how “that’s what I did back home” and insisted that Yukhei try it.

“Oh, wow, this is.” Yukhei dips another fry into the concoction. “ _Wow_. And, uh, thanks, I guess? I actually haven’t met anyone else in the building yet. Besides you two.”

Mark shrugs. “Eh, a lot of people who live here are students or foreigners, or newly graduated like us.”

Hendery grabs a napkin off the table and reaches over to wipe some ketchup-mayo off of Mark’s mouth. He crumples up the tissue and asks, “what d’you do? You done school?”

At his age, everyone is asking about what they’re doing, or what they _want_ to do, plan to do, but Yukhei hasn’t gotten that far yet: his bachelor’s degree is… kinda useless, if he’s being brutally honest with himself. Very few clear career pathways in linguistics aside from academic research or therapy. Any time this topic is brought up, he feels as if he’s at a standstill in his life, living without any sense of direction.

So he chooses to answer honestly, hoping they’ll understand the feeling: “I work at a café. I have no idea what I wanna do.”

“Oh, dude. Don’t worry. Same, honestly, it kinda,” Hendery scoffs, “it kinda sucks. I’ve got two older sisters and _they,_ ” he rolls his eyes, “they have it all figured out. Same with Mark’s older brother. He’s only a couple years older than us and he’s already married.” 

He looks over at Mark, who nods in agreement.

“But, like, fuck it! We’re young, we’re independent. I just got out of school and now I’m working at a shoe shop in Hongdae. Mark’s got a full-time gig doing customer service stuff at Lotte World. I’m helping him work on his mixtape. We’re not in a _career_ or anything but we’re working hard and living. Figuring stuff out and trying new things.”

Through the rest of dinner, Yukhei finds the tenseness he unknowingly held in his shoulders slowly relaxing. The three of them exchange stories about funny customers and university shenanigans, Yukhei noticing more and more similarities between them. At the mention of the modelling agency, the duo are nothing but encouraging.

“You’ve got experience in the field, too! And, iunno, that” Mark stops, chewing on the thought while eating a fry. “That,” he wiggles his fingers with the next words, “unexplainable allure. That vibe. I wish I was attractive enough to be a model.”

Hendery turns to his boyfriend and says, “ _I_ think you’re attractive enough to be a model.” Mark sinks into his seat with embarrassment.

Yukhei smiles, can’t help himself from noticing the comfort between them: Hendery’s arm draped around the back of Mark’s chair, Mark’s Canadian accent steeped into Hendery’s speech whenever he slips in an English word. How, while they walk down the street, Mark tries (really awkwardly) to slip into their conversation in Cantonese, hiding behind his hands and Hendery’s shoulder when he mispronounces a word very, _very_ wrong.

If his mom is right about the whole soulmate thing, Yukhei hopes to meet the person soon. It’s been a while since he’s experienced this kind of companionship. It seems like he’s constantly surrounded by couples.

Before making their way back home, Hendery asks to stop by the CU beneath their building.

“I need a snack for later,” he explains. “Something about burgers makes me really crave chips.”

Despite all convenience stores being essentially the same on the inside, Yukhei enjoys wandering through the aisles anyway, looking at all the snacks offerings and neatly organized displays. He’s stepped into this store a couple times since moving in but didn’t find anything remarkable.

He settles on buying a bag of oranges for the weekend, because as his mom reminded him the other day, he’s still a “growing boy, Yukhei, so make sure you eat your fruits!”

The lineup to pay is long thanks to the checkout being manned by a single store employee. The high schooler maintains a cold demeanor, fiddling with her phone between each slow transaction. Yukhei takes the opportunity to glance around in case there’s anything else he needs to bring home.

In the corner of his eye he catches a mop of bright white hair hidden under a maroon cap. The person moves, walking through the medicinal aisle, and Yukhei catches a glimpse of large golden frames in its shadow.

“Hey,” Yukhei whispers, tapping Hendery on the shoulder. He makes a subtle gesture toward the man, whose face is turned away from them. “Does he live in our building? I feel like I’ve seen him before.”

“Huh?” Hendery looks over, eyes squinting. “Oh, yeah, that’s—” but he gets cut off by the cashier motioning for him to move forward and pay.

Mark supplies the answer. “Y’know the package you found? It was his. He’s Hendery’s coworker’s best friend or something.”

“Oh, cool,” is all Yukhei says, eyes fixed on the man’s retreating figure and filled with unexplainable interest.

* * *

Yukhei is a chatterbox when he’s nervous.

Ten is sitting in the driver’s seat next to him, driving them down busy morning traffic. Yukhei, strapped into the passenger side and dressed in his best pair of pants, is moving his hands animatedly through the air.

“I’ve dreamt of this snake,” Yukhei pauses to count on his fingers: thumb, index, middle, ring, pinky. “Five. Five times now!”

“Sounds terrifying.”

“I’ve never had recurring dreams like this before. Never.” Yukhei has to stop himself from running his fingers through his hair. He can’t mess up his hairstyle before anyone sees it. “I’m not even scared of it anymore. Just annoyed. Last night, I didn’t even see it until its little beady eyes were looking directly into mine, because its scales changed colours. It’s shiny and black now. Almost looks blue.”

Ten tuts. Always acting like the older brother Yukhei never had. “Be patient, Lulu. I’m sure you’ll meet this person soon.” He suddenly gasps. “Maybe it’ll be one of the other models today!”

“That’s wishful thinking.”

“You sure it isn’t your two neighbours? You could join them and become a throuple. Oh! And you’ll save on rent if you move in with them, too.”

Yukhei considers this for a moment but quickly dismisses it. “No, that’s not my, uh, thing, I don’t think. Or theirs.”

Ten goes on to soothe Yukhei’s nerves, telling the story of how _he_ was in a throuple with Doyoung for a few months—the third addition being a guy named Taeyong. Before he gets into the mechanics of how the three of them got busy, they arrive at their destination.

 _Vision Collective_ is an on-the-rise modelling agency based in Seoul, its studio hidden behind a staircase next to a Japanese curry house in Gangnam. The outside is unassuming, its logo sign a simple V hanging in neon above the entrance, and if Yukhei didn’t already trust Ten with his life, he would’ve assumed the whole setup was sketchy.

Kun and Johnny greet Ten with a hug, then move onward to extend their hand into a firm, friendly handshake with Yukhei. Johnny smiles when they meet, Yukhei mirrors the same, and the nerves bouncing around in his stomach settle when Kun whispers to Ten, “I have a good feeling about him.”

  
  
  
  


After a long day of flashing lights and friendly chit chat, Yukhei finds himself across the dinner table from Doyoung and Ten again. This time, though, he’s not just a third wheel: he’s a fifth wheel.

 _This_ time, he limits himself to only one shot of soju, knowing full well that if Kun (and by extension, his husband) ends up being his higher-up, he shouldn’t leave a tipsy first impression on them. Not the best idea.

Yukhei arrives at his building fully sobered up and exhausted. The extra sips of the water he drank in an attempt to sober himself up are now kicking in, making the pressure in his bladder unbearable during the ride home. His farewell to his friends is brief at best, as much as a “bye, love you guys!” before swiping his access key in a hurry. The dash up four flights of stairs and through his apartment is at a record breaking speed—he’s never opened a door so fast in his life.

Once relieved and no longer feeling pressed for time, Yukhei decides to take a shower to rinse out the leftover product still combed through his hair. He cranks the heat up to a tepid warmth, taking the time to scrub down his body and wash his face before drying himself off.

When he steps out to grab some clean clothes in his dresser, he hears something.

In his rush to the washroom, Yukhei didn’t turn on any of the lights in his apartment: just bolted from the door to the toilet without a second thought, barely remembering to take off his shoes. His wallet is still tucked into his pants pocket, and even his house keys are in the washroom with him, half dangling off the counter, half in the sink.

There’s complete darkness as he walks silently through his bedroom. One of his sleeping shorts lies neatly folded at the edge of his bed closest to the washroom; he tugs them over his legs before approaching the living area.

It’s quiet, and without his contacts or glasses Yukhei can’t really see into his living room, either. The only light inside his apartment comes from the fluorescent bulbs in his washroom and the 24-hour nightlight flicked on near the entrance of the apartment. From those two points Yukhei can make out the vague shape of _something_ in his kitchen, the shadow from the nightlight casted onto it. Without any visual aid, he’s unable to make out the exact curves or size of the shadow—all he knows is that it’s next to the kitchen fridge, figure close against it, and—and it _sneezes_.

Against all the thoughts running through his brain (mostly the awful, heart-pounding “oh my god it’s a _ghost_ ” thought), Yukhei’s initial reaction to the sneeze is that he recognizes it. As recognizable as a sneeze could be.

The figure sneezes again, softer this time, and Yukhei decides that it’s probably (definitely) a human. Either that or a demon with seasonal allergies. Both seem likely at this point.

The switch for the overhead fixture in the living room is close to the front entrance. The shadow doesn’t seem to sense Yukhei’s presence as he quietly walks toward the switch, arm reaching toward it to flick it on.

The first thing Yukhei notices: the thing in his kitchen is just a human. A sleepy-lidded, slouching human, wincing away from the light. Thank god.

The second thing he notices: he left his apartment door unlocked.

The third? He didn’t put on a shirt before leaving his bedroom.

“Whoa! S’bright, gege, turn it off!” The man turns away from Yukhei, rubbing his eyes to shield himself from the light. He presses his forehead against the fridge door and pulls over the hood of his sweater.

Yukhei takes a moment to look at the man's profile. His eyes pan from his neck up to his hair, and he realizes belatedly that what the guy said wasn’t in Korean. He has to fish out his high school level Mandarin skills from the depths of his brain in order to answer. “I’m, uh, not your gege.” The man doesn’t say anything, so Yukhei switches to Korean. “What’s your name?”

“Gege, I think I drank too much,” the man whines, completely ignoring Yukhei’s question. He still has his forehead pressed against the front of the fridge. Under the shadow of his face, Yukhei can see the tell-tale drunken flush over the top of his cheeks, framed by strands of dyed black hair. “I went to noraebang with Hyuck and them for Jaemin’s birthday, and Jaemin made me his drinking buddy! I had _way_ too many shots. Sicheng, do you like whiskey?”

Now that Yukhei knows his nighttime intruder is just a drunk human, he relaxes a little. The man looks like he means little to no harm—all he’s carrying on him is a sling bag over his shoulder (Dior, Yukhei notes. Wow.) and a phone in his hand.

The man’s eyes drag down, down, head nodding toward the side of the fridge, and in a split second he nearly falls down onto Yukhei’s kitchen floor.

Yukhei’s quick enough to catch him, arms outstretched to catch his back. He stumbles in his arms, legs not holding up all his weight, so Yukhei grips tightly onto his waist and shoulder.

Their positioning in the kitchen ends up looking a little dramatic: the man’s body weight entirely rests in Yukhei’s arms, head looking up at him, dipped low from catching his fall. Parallel to a romcom scene where one of the main characters slips and falls, only to be caught by their interest. Yukhei’s sure he’s watched something like this before.

The man’s gaze shifts from Yukhei’s hands, where they’re gripping onto his arms and waist, up his neck to his lips to land on his eyes, fixed there. He gulps and licks his lips. “I, um.” He looks back to Yukhei’s arms, chest, and the man pokes him square down the center line of his body. “I don’t think you’re my cousin.”

Yukhei laughs shyly, gets a little carried away by the sheepish look on the man’s face. “I’m not.” He lifts the man up to get him back on both feet. “My name’s Yukhei. What’s yours?”

“Oh.” He looks around, first up at the ceiling, at the lights, then around the kitchen and toward the couch. “Huh. Where am I?”

“You’re in the wrong apartment. We’re on the fourth floor.”

His lips part open then close, eyes panning over Yukhei’s face again. “I live on the fourteenth floor.”

“Ah. Well,” Yukhei leads the man toward the living room. “You stay here, and I’m gonna get my keys. And then I’ll help you get upstairs. Do you have your keys?”

The man sits down on Yukhei’s couch, nestling his bottom until he’s comfortable. He rummages through his bag until he finds a jangly set of keys with a stuffed toy hanging off it. “Yup, I do!” 

He looks up at Yukhei, lips pressed together until they’re no longer visible, the line of his smile pressing into the edges of his cheeks: round and soft-looking and very endearing. A sudden flush of warmth fills Yukhei’s chest.

“Good, good,” Yukhei walks toward his bedroom to grab a shirt. “Stay right there!” He calls from the room.

When he returns, the man is standing in front of Yukhei’s shelf, closely examining one of his photos. His hands are behind his back, swaying slightly on his toes as he focuses intently on the picture.

“Is this you?” He asks, pointing at the frame.

Yukhei looks over his shoulder to find a baby picture of him: smiling, all teeth, dressed in a tuxedo. “Uh, yeah. It is.”

“Huh.” The man takes a good look at Yukhei’s face, tilting his head. “You look the exact same. Except now you’re, um.” He takes stock of Yukhei once more, panning from his feet to the top of his head, lingers on his lips before meeting his eyes. “You’re still cute but… but now you’re bigger.”

“Thanks.” Yukhei feels a light flush settle over his cheeks. He turns, walking over to the front door. “Let’s get you back home.”

The man attempts to follow behind him but stumbles on the way, his path not entirely straight. He makes it to the entrance and plops himself onto the floor to put on his sneakers.

When his shoes are successfully laced on, Yukhei offers him a hand to stand up. The man doesn’t let go. Instead he slots his knobby fingers in the rough spaces between Yukhei’s and simply giggles at their hands, together, looking down with teeth biting his lip and a smile that reaches all the way up to his eyes.

Yukhei plays along, towing along the stranger’s small hand in his own as he locks the apartment door behind them. They don’t wait long for the elevator to arrive.

“I think if we’re gonna hold hands, you should at least tell me your name.”

The man leans against the mirrored wall nearest the buttons but doesn’t let go of Yukhei’s hand.

“Renjun.” It comes out lilted and slurred. Yukhei looks back and sees the heaviness weighing down in his eyes.

In the 10-storey ride up, Yukhei uses the time to look at Renjun’s outfit: all black attire, from the glinting metal of his bag to the face mask in his pocket to his branded shoes. His hair, dyed so black it looks blue. The undeniable familiarity of it.

“Would you, by chance, be a snake?”

This seems to wake up Renjun. “Huh?”

Yukhei presses on. “What’s your sign? Are you a snake?”

“Oh. Nope.” Renjun shakes his head, then leans back against the wall of the elevator. “I’m a dragon.” His free hand makes a claw near his face, teeth bearing out as he says, “ _roooaaar_. Not like,” he sticks his tongue out at Yukhei, “not _sssssssss_. I’m _rooooaaaar_.” 

Renjun scratches his scalp, tilts his head with lips pouted. “But my friend once said that I’d be a Slytherin if I was a wizard. So I guess I’m both?”

Yukhei thinks Renjun might be the cutest drunk guy he’s ever met.

The ding of the fourteenth floor knocks a bit of sense back into Renjun. Yukhei guides him out of the elevator but stops at the intersection in the hallways. Renjun takes the lead, tightening his hold around Yukhei’s hand and guides them down the hall.

They stop at a door just like Yukhei’s, the unit number 1424 hanging over the spyhole. That number’s definitely familiar.

“Is your last name Huang?”

Renjun wrestles the inside of his bag for his keys. “Um. Yes? You’re a good guesser.” When he successfully finds the keychain, he lets out a triumphant “aha!”

Before he sticks the key into the door, Renjun hesitates. Doesn’t quite let go of Yukhei’s hand, and Yukhei makes no move either.

“You asked me a lot of questions tonight.” Renjun scrunches his nose, looking up at Yukhei. “I have one for you.”

Yukhei pads his thumb over Renjun’s hand. Not subtle at all because Renjun notices, gaze flashing down and up quickly.

“Have we met before?”

It took him a while to notice, took all of the elevator ride up for Yukhei to notice, too. He can’t tell if memory is coming back to Renjun, rewinding back to the elevator a couple weeks ago, or the convenience store last Thursday. Or maybe to his dreams, lights reflecting off scales of white and midnight black. That unnerving feeling twists in Yukhei’s stomach again but for a completely different reason now, something closer to butterflies.

“I think we have.”

* * *

Renjun appears at Yukhei’s front door three days later.

He’s still dressed in all black, all the way up to his hair (which, from Yukhei’s memory, looks much better in jet black than it did in white). The aura surrounding him is completely different in the daytime: Renjun carries with himself a sense of self-assured confidence that didn’t transfer onto his drunk persona. There’s no hesitation in his words or stumbling around when Yukhei opens the door.

Yukhei stands there, shirtless again, and he thinks it’s fitting that they meet once more under these circumstances.

“Oh,” Renjun blushes. Tucks away the shyness, although the rosiness still lingers. “Do you remember me?” Renjun asks.

“I think it’d be hard to forget someone who broke into my apartment.”

“To be _faaair_ ,” Renjun drawls on the last word, slight sing-song to his voice. He lightly pokes Yukhei in the center of his chest again, teasing. “It’s not breaking in if the apartment is unlocked.”

Yukhei clutches his chest, pretending that the pointer-finger press hurt more on his body than it did to his ego. “Ouch. I’d argue otherwise.”

“I’d like to argue over lunch.”

Blunt, straightforward. Yukhei can appreciate that.

When he doesn’t respond and silence passes for a second too long, Renjun follows up with, “or coffee. Or dinner. Wherever you wanna argue the laws of breaking and entering—it’ll be on me.”

“Like a date?”

Renjun doesn’t falter when he answers, “like an apology.”

“I’m free this afternoon for an apology date.”

“Good. Good,” Renjun affirms. “Okay. See you in the lobby at 1.”

Yukhei watches Renjun walk down the hallway, locking his apartment door with glee.

  
  
  


“Do you believe in ghosts?”

The heat of the upcoming season has trickled into spring, opening up some patio seating in their neighbourhood. Yukhei enjoys the breeze that accompanies their lunch, hoping it sticks around because, if lunch goes well—it already _is_ going well—he hopes they can linger along the streets a while longer. Maybe hold hands, if he’s lucky.

“Definitely. And aliens.” Renjun pushes around the rice in his stone bowl. “What about you?”

“Same. I thought you were a ghost at first.”

“That’s not hard to believe.”

“Do you believe in soulmates?”

Renjun ponders on it. Looks up at the sky, takes a sip of his tea. “Yeah, I think so. You just… have to trust yourself when something feels right.” 

There are lots of people bustling around them on the street but to Yukhei, his vision is narrowed down to their table, the man across from him.

“Why? Do you?”

Yukhei trusts his gut when he answers. “Definitely.”

* * *

It takes a lucky gut feeling and a year for Yukhei’s modelling career to kick off.

Yukhei “Lucas” Wong becomes the first significant success story for Vision Collective: an amateur model turned brand ambassador. It’s not his passion—nothing will ever light a fire in his heart the same way linguistics did—but he gets to use his plethora of language skills when he meets new people on set.

Plus, he can pay rent without as much worry as before.

“Yes, mom, we got a unit on the ninth floor this time. Aren’t you happy for us?”

Yukhei speaks to his mom in Thai (he’s making an active effort to practice more) and Renjun nods along from where he’s rested on the bed, close enough to listen along to the conversation he can’t understand. He turns under Yukhei’s arm, nose brushing over his chest, and exhales. “Tell her I said hi.”

Yukhei plops a kiss on Renjun’s head. “Ma, Renjun says hi. Yeah, yeah, we just woke up—why’re you up so early? It’s barely 7am there. Go back to sleep. Okay. Okay, bye mom. Love you.”

Renjun snickers beneath the blanket. Yukhei isn’t usually so quick to end a call with his mom but he has some dire dream-news to tell Renjun.

He slips his phone under his pillow case and adjusts his body. It curves into the space next to Renjun, fingers tangled between them.

“So. I had a dream.”

“As you always do.”

“It was good. We got a pet.”

“Was it a snake?” Renjun teases. Yukhei kicks his shin from under the covers.

“We had a puppy.” Yukhei tugs Renjun closer, wraps his arms around him until they fit perfectly together, Renjun’s tattooed spine snug against Yukhei’s chest. “Dressed her in a little pink sweater. We named her Bella.”

Renjun snorts. “Like Twilight?”

“Like _beautiful_.” Yukhei kisses the edge of Renjun’s ear. Relishes in the comfortable warmth of their bed, the blanket, the boy in his arms. His soulmate, perhaps. 

“Hmmmm. I’ve always wanted a pet.” Renjun hums in consideration. “I think that’s a dream we could make come true.”

His soulmate, definitely.

**Author's Note:**

> LFF Prompt #66: person A’s mother had always warned him about things that go bump in the night, he can’t say she’d warned him about the drunk (and really, really cute) guy accidentally breaking into his apartment.
> 
> aside from the snake-dream belief, there are a couple other superstitions thrown in throughout this fic — brownie points if you can spot them :)
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/boyfrendery) | [cc](https://curiouscat.me/boyfrendery)


End file.
